Tag: books

avidreadr2004: purplesocrates: hanni-bunny-lecter: death-by-lulz: bookbinding level: hannibal This makes me want to write a fic about hannibal doing this. Wow just flabbergasted. My family has a lamp that’s been passed down for generations and we’re pretty sure the shade is made with human flesh. We call it the skin lamp.

I gotta get my ass to work but quick question – have you read A Clockwork Orange? If yes, how would you compare that “sucking into head” with the Hannibal show vs movies vs books sucking in? (The Clockwork Orange movie didn’t do it as much so I’m not sure I’d draw the comparison from the movie, just the book) (I loved and was deeply disturbed by the book…)

I saw the movie, didn’t read the book.

Ya know how Stephen King slams you right into his characters’ heads? It’s not quite that strong (I mean who could beat Stephen King for shoving you into a character’s head?!), but along those same lines for the Hannibal books.

However, it’s Clarice’s head and Will’s head instead of Hannibal’s. I read them a LONG time ago, so I could be wrong about them not delving into Hannibal’s head at all, but from what I remember it’s Hannibal through Clarice and Will’s eyes.

The series has that in common with the books. You’re going to get into Will’s head more than you do Hannibal’s with the series. At least I did. Maybe other viewers feel differently, but for me and my mom it was definitely seeing Hannibal through Will and also seeing other killers through Hannibal’s cold view, if that makes sense 🙂

lol we keep talking across each other cause we haven’t read the same stuff – would you believe I’ve never read ANY Stephen King? When I was young I was all snooty about it “he’s popular so he must be bad why would I read that?” and once I got older and got my nose out of the air I just never got around to it. I want to read Dark Tower…

The book of A Clockwork Orange is another I’d highly recommend given what you’ve said of your taste. I took a comparative literature course to meet a graduation requirement my last summer of college and I had zero interest in it and I got the syllabus and it said we’d be reading and watching Clockwork Orange and I was like ugh that sucks isn’t that the thing with the ultraviolence that frat bros think is cool? It took less than a chapter before I was like wait no this is a really interesting book and by the end…well, it’s another book that changed my entire view of what writing can be. The movie epic fails to communicate that – which isn’t to say the movie was bad, but there’s simply no way a visual form could capture the psychology of the book. In the book you are locked in Alex’s head and he speaks a different language and the first few pages are fucking incomprehensible but the more you read the more sense it makes and even when he does stuff that is objectively terrible it gets harder and harder not to think like him and sympathize with him and by the time you get to him being “reprogrammed” or whatever (sorry it was over a decade ago so some of the specifics slip my mind) I was like no wait stop leave him alone…and the next book I read it was weird that it WASN’T in Nadsat (…it was the next book for the course, and it was Hamlet, and man was that transition weiiiiiird). and like dude this book fucking brainwashes you? And it’s absolutely incredible? Really the whole thing is one massive study in psychology, both Alex’s psychology and that of the reader, and it fucked me up and made one hell of an impression on me and ended up being my single favorite thing in that entire course.

The movie just…doesn’t do any of that. I seriously don’t think it could have. Movies are a wonderful medium capable of a lot books aren’t capable of…but they more-or-less by definition externalize the experience of the protagonist(s) from the viewer in a way that a masterfully written book doesn’t. I’ve never yet seen a movie where I felt like, to some extent, I *became* the protagonist, but the best books do that – and Alex is one fuckin’ fascinating, disturbing protagonist to become…

Sorry. I have strong feelings about this book. 🙂

tl:dr, I recommend the book version of A Clockwork Orange about a billion times more than I recommend the movie, and the more we talk the more I think I should start watching Hannibal…probably the next time I’ll have the chance to actually sit down and watch a movie is six months to a year, depending on nugget, but it was already near the top of my list and this has just solidified that.

(even my tl:dr’s are long, god I suck at being concise…)

I don’t know if you’ll like them, but if you love getting sucked right the fuck into a character’s head so hard that you become one with them even when the POV changes? You’ll like Stephen King.

He also writes almost like it’s a stream-of-consciousness thing. It’s so… I can’t even call it casual, but the language is so familiar(?) that you fall even harder into the character’s head.

Even if you don’t like the actual subjects or stories, his books are something to experience. Pick any book because he does it with all of them. In fact he’s had the biggest influence on my writing. He’s the reason I write third person limited instead of omniscient.

If I ever even come close to achieving a small portion of what King does to your head when you’re reading, I’ll consider myself an accomplished writer.

Oh, and don’t judge him by the movies. It sounds a lot like the same issue you had with Clockwork Orange. A movie version of King’s books could never even come close to how the books feel. Which is really sad because I think a lot of people only know him by the movies. It, especially, turned out much more corny than the book, and you never get that inside creepy feeling.

I’ve heard about the Clockwork Orange thing – reading the book is a completely different experience than watching the movie. My mom even suggested I read it even though she’s not usually into stuff like that. I should probably read it one of these days 😀

I love psychological stuff. I don’t know if I can convey it properly, but it seems like Clockwork Orange might have done it for you – feeling mindfucked in a good way? Like your brain has been played with and manipulated, and you finish whatever it is feeling like you’ve been changed but in an uneasy good way? I love that about media, and if I find writers or shows or movies like that, I glom onto them. From what you’ve said I’ll probably love Clockwork Orange.

Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s do this. My Favorite Book Character: Edgler Foreman Winston Vess from the book Intensity by Dean Koontz. Character Description: Edgler is a brutal serial killer who preys on men, women, and children according to his mood. He kills for the sheer “intensity” of it. He believes that life is all about …